Tax evasion drained a record USD991.2 billion in illicit financial flows from developing economies in 2012 – facilitating crime and corruption, according to a new study by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington DC-based research and advisory organization. “To put this in perspective, the cumulative total of official development assistance to the developing countries in this report… was just USD809 billion,” said a GFI note.…

One of the biggest expanding markets for cosmetics and personal care products is sub-Saharan Africa. A key exporter to the region, L’Oréal has estimated that the overall African beauty and personal care market generated EUR6.93 billion (USD8.61 billion) in 2012, growing at between 8% and 10% annually, compared to a global market growth rate near 4%.…

Soap and personal care manufacturers worldwide have responded to the Ebola epidemic with donations of their products to directly affected regions.     Their goal especially has been to promote cleanliness as a means of limiting the spread of the disease. For instance, the USA’s Avadim Technologies has donated its advanced Theraworx sanitation products to Liberia, in partnership with Eblen Charities, for instance.…

GHANA continues to be recognised as one of Africa’s success stories. The country remains relatively peaceful and stable, and its economy has grown at an annual average of around 6% over the past six years. As a result, it is maybe not a surprise that Ghana was ranked healthily at 5.88 (10 being the worst score) in the 2014 Basel Anti-Money Laundering index, among the lowest in west Africa, only bettered by established democracy Senegal, with 5.43.…

THE EUROPEAN pharmaceutical industry’s fast-track approach to investing in the Ebola virus disease (EVD) has been welcomed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), as progress in fighting the disease in west Africa starts being made. Speaking to members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in Brussels on Wednesday (Nov 5), the WHO regional director for Europe Zsuzsanna Jakab said that although in the past, EVD was considered a disease of poverty and therefore commercial interests and benefits were unclear, today that attitude had changed.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced it will pay an additional EUR3 million to the Airport Communication Project (AIRCOP), financing its work to 2016. AIRCOP is run by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and Interpol, and aims to strengthen anti-narcotic detection, interdiction and intelligence capacities in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. …

West African airports have imposed comprehensive health checks on passengers to fight the spread of the Ebola virus. In the region’s most populous country Nigeria, widespread passenger medical screening is under way, using screening, protection, detection and healthcare equipment, some donated by the USA government and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Chinese construction firms have cornered plenty of business in Africa and Latin America, but they need upskilling to consolidate their position. Anyone who observes the queues of nervous young men lining up in the early morning in Beijing’s tree-lined Sanlitun diplomatic district will be in no doubt of the intensity of Chinese activity in Africa and Latin America.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) oil refining industry is looking at September as the time when the European Commission may propose a new way to implement the bloc’s fuel quality directive (FQD). This would break a deadlock of almost three years, with Brussels tabling its last proposed technical rules on how the 2009 law should work in October 2011.…

The cogeneration market in Turkey is in flux. Overall combined heat and power (CHP) capacity has dropped over the past decade from 15% of total energy capacity in 2004, to 14% in 2013, primarily due to high oil and gas prices in the wake of market liberalisation that made CHP less cost effective.…